Feb 26, 2008 12:58 pm US/Eastern
"60 Minutes" Missing from Alabama Airwaves
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A segment on former Alabama Governor Don Siegelman disappeared from a CBS affiliate in Alabama.
CBS
WHNT, the CBS affiliate in Huntsville, Alabama, mysteriously went to black during a controversial segment on "60 Minutes." The segment featured a look at former Alabama governor Don Siegelman and if he was the focus of a political hit from former Bush political adviser Karl Rove.
The ''60 Minutes'' story suggested Republican politics was behind Siegelman's prosecution and imprisonment, a claim prosecutors deny.
The screen only went to black at the beginning of the Siegelman segment and reappeared as the segment was coming to an end. The station originally said, "We apologize that you missed the first segment of 60 Minutes tonight featuring 'The Prosecution of Don Siegelman.' It was a techincal (sic) problem with CBS out of New York."
CBS responded saying there was no problem on its end and the problems were peculiar to Channel 19, which had the signal and had functioning transmitters.
Once CBS contradicted the original claims by the station, the official story from WHNT changed to a malfunctioning receiver at the station. "The receiver failed at the worst possible time, and there's nothing I can do to make some people believe it." New general manager and former sales manager at WHNT, Stan Pylant, told the Associated Press.
Pylant said he received numerous calls from people on both sides of the political spectrum complaining the report wasn't shown the first tie, others claiming it wasn't shown at all. WHNT did finally air the nearly 13-minute segment during the station's 10pm newscast.
Alabama Democratic Party Chairman Joe Turnham said he will send a letter to the Federal Communications Commission asking for a formal inquiry to make sure there was no political pressure behind the blackout.
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